Hi guys,a while back I posted here about my problems with my new system and stuttering - or pauses - that I am experiencing. Since then I reformatted, set up RAID 0 from scratch, reinstalled FS9, tried all sorts of tweaks but nothing seems to help.I am running an Athlon 64 3500+ processor on an ASUS A8N5X board, nForce 4 chipset with 1Gb Corsair RAM, water cooled. Sapphire X850 XT PE cardCreative X-Fi sound card2 Seagate Barracuda 160Gb SATA disks in RAID 0, strip size 64kb1 older IDE disk, 80Gb500w power supplyWin XP pro SP2all the latest drivers and BIOSFS9 stutters like crazy; for example, approaching a large airport like EDDF or EHAM I get 4-5 big pauses about 1 second long. Flying cross country, there are sporadic micro stutters, then sometimes I get repeating stutters every second or so which then suddenly disappear again. Seems like whenever some textures are loaded, I get stutters. AI or no AI, no difference. All in all, the sim is unflyable! I noticed similar stuttering in Pacific fighters and that's OpenGL...I think it's not the disks because I get the same stuttering when I run FS from the old disk and the stutters are perfectly repeatable. I have a few situations saved and I -always- get exactly the same stutters or pauses, no matter what I do on the system. I tested with clean FS installation, no addons, some services shut down; I rebuilt RAID 0 (strip size back to 64 from 128); tried SCSI disk instead of the Barracudas; tried most of the tweaks and different settings in FS; I disabled all sorts of things like parallel and serial ports, LAN, sound, etc... no change! FS was never this fast, I am amazed at FPS, in fact, but what good does that do if I can't get rid of stutters?So, is it hardware? But if something was not running properly, wouldn't these stutters be more sporadic and not so repeatable? One curious thing I noticed is, that graphic card drivers are for "X850 series" while the chipset is correctly identified as "X850 XT PE". I tried forcing X850 XT PE drivers but then lost all anti-aliasing. Again, that is repeatable with different drivers (ATI, Omega)Temperatures are OK, running full steam around 39 Celsius (processor) and between 50-60C on the graphic card. No CTD's, no blue screens, no other indications of ANY problems whatsoever! And just for the record, no viruses or spyware either. I run NOD32.I am frustrated to the point of throwing the whole darn box out through the window!I'll try replacing the power supply and borrow another graphics card in the next days to see if that would help. Any ideas, comments or just soothing words more than welcome! :-lolRegards,Jure

Jure,I hate to see you in such a desperate mood. I recall you are a former FLY!2k contributor, cloud creator. My system is very similar but not exactly as yours. I have the same exact CPU but my mobo (Abit - chipset (VIA) is different and my card is ATI X800 Pro. So my system is a bit lesser than yours. Still I do have micro stutters but not to the extent you report. I want to help but certainly I am not a hardware guru, I hate when a fellow simmer of such stature as you is in trouble. But please stutters is a very subjective thing. See what kind of stutters you get around KSEA (default scenery) - and make sure you don't have some airport upgrade package installed (like Chris Arrington's airport upgrade stuff) which may cause lots of stutter.Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_744F.jpghttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg

Michael,Thanks for the kind words. The good old Fly!2 days... :)I can live with some stuttering, I think it's inevitable. My old system certainly had them, but all in all it was very smooth compared to this. I tested extensively at KSEA, no add-ons. Nothing at all, just FS9.1, no .dll's in the Modules folder - nothing. Even now, when I reinstalled some of my add-ons, I have nothing much at KSEA except mesh and UT AI traffic (the .bgl can be quickly removed for tests anyway). Compared to my old system and it's few stutters when AI textures and downtown Seattle are loaded, I now get violent jerks in turns - in VC it's like some giant fist hits the airplane and stops it in it's tracks. With all the tweaking I've done I managed to alleviate most of the "standard" stuttering and pauses withing FS and I believe that these significant pauses or "jerks" are caused by something else, not FS. Especially, because I see the same pattern in all my three FS installations (one of them being Golden Wings). As I said, I experience the same stuttering in OpenGL (Pacific fighters) which was VERY smooth on my old system (Athlon 3000+ Sapphire 9600 XT on ASUS A7N8X). It *looks like* pauses occur whenever there is any significant load on the graphics card and that is not necesarrily in sync with disk activity. On the other hand, videos or movies run perfectly. Also, when I work in Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, all seems to be working great and fast. To add, I did play (rebuilt, changed size) with pagefile, but to no avail. There is enough memory and pagefile size is normal.Thanks for your reply, Michael! Jure

Hi Jure,From your discription I have the same problem as yours, maybe not to your extend. So let me exchange some experience here. First my computer:AMD64 3200+ | 1GB ram | 7800GT pci-e | 7200 rpm Maxtor w/ 8mb cache | MSI NEO4 platinum SLI moboSo it's a lesser system than yours other than the vcard. As you said the problem is not primarily FPS. But shutters drive me nuts. For me take offs are less of a problem. But coming in to land, it sometimes shutters. And when cruising in the air it shutters for a few secs. every few mins. Now here is what I think of it. These shutters are directly related to loading, and not necessarily in sync with HD access. In another word, FS9 is heavily loading things into the memory when shutters occur. "Approach loading" is mostly due to AI. You use ultimate traffic, so did I. It's a great program but as many know their AI models are very FPS UNfriendly compared to models from AIA, CDAI or even FSP. They have much higher polycount and much less LODs. Now I only use those models and that's probably why my approach and onground shutters are not nearly as bad as yours. So for your testing purpose, set AI to 0% and do a day time approach into KSEA and see how much of your problem is gone. "areo shutters" are linked to cloud draw and ground texture loading. I set my cloud to 40 mile 100% 3D clouds with max coverage. I know setting it to 30 miles instead will make the shutters much less of a problem. For your testing, start with a clear sky. And then gradually introduce clouds into the sky. But stay with 30 mile draw in the beginning. See when you star really getting hit by shutters. I also use a program called Filemon to track real time what files FS9 is loading at any given time. I did find a few missing files that FS9 kept searching NON-stop. Also a few other suggestions:In FS9.cfg set TEXTURE BANDWITH to at least 200 (400 max). Defragment your HDUse replacement cloud textures: AS6, Flight environment or free ones found at AVSIMIf your Vcard is designed to use seperate power supply make sure you are feeding it.Use FSAUTOSTART (found at AVSIM) to shut down all unnecessary services and programs prior to launching FS9, expecially antivirus program.If you are using onboard soundcard disable it and test your FS9 performance.Two things I am looking into right now:Compressing filesSystemboosterXPThat's about it. My suggestions are not absolute cure for the problem but they all helped me. If one day you find a good solution please let me know. It's really not that related to computer rig. I just bought my 7800GT to replace my 6600GT. It did give me some more FPS and smoothness but my FS9 shutters are basically the same. I know not everyone has this problem. I wonder what our computer have in common that makes this inevidable...anyway.Good luck!Jason

>Compressing files>I have the whole FS folder compressed. Hard to tell if it helps in terms of stutter but I am sure of one thing - it does NOT hurt.Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_744F.jpghttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg

Jason,thanks for the suggestions. I've done most of what you wrote about (Filemon, FSAutostart, no AI, no weather - I use AS6 via WideFS, BTW). I am replacing the UT AI models as well, but it's a slow going. Before I reformatted (again)I had my FS folder compressed and while it certainly didn't hurt, it didn't help either. You gave me an idea, though. The graphics card's power supply! It's connected to the PS but I'll take a closer look at that. It does seem like the card is choking inspite the good FPS whenever there's more textures to be loaded. It contradicts logic, but well... 500W should be adequate, or?The thing is, I can't get smooth flying AT ALL. It's crazy, there's all sorts of jerks, stutters, pauses, microstutters all the time except over completely barren land when FPS go wild between 100 and 200. Over Sahara, for example. Yes, I tried different textures as well. :)Jure

Jure,Also different people react differently to stutters - some barely see them some bitterly complain. So without actually sitting in front your PC it is hard to tell. If you can go to some default airport (not the Sahara desert), clear all weather, set visibility at 30 miles, no AI and get fairly good FPS - say around 70) with little stutter then your are OK. Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_744F.jpghttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg

That's a fair point. Jason

You mention that your frame rates can be as high as 200 which suggest you do not have frame rate lock on.For a test try locking your frame rates to the lowly figure us mere mortals have :-), 25FPS and see if that reduces or eliminates the stutters. If it does notch up the lock in stages.Good luck.

Hi, Jure.Your system should have no problem with running FS. Here are a couple of things that you may want to look at:In your BIOS make sure you are in the High Performance / max speed mode.After you install 9.1 patch, defrag your HD.Disable your AV and or Fire wall, and all apps not needed, use FSAutostart as a starting point. You should have only about 20-24 Processes running.SP2 does not help, but if you go on the Net you should keep it.Start out with the default MS configuration and note results, this should give good FPS, later you can increase your settings.If the default .cfg does not perform well, do a display test like 3Dmark01, you should get in the 20000, or higher, count.Set your AA AF to 4,8, not higher, start out without first.It sounds like your system is not optimized / running in max performance, most of the MoBos default to low performance.The FPS hoags are AI, 3D clouds, Texture res., Vis., try to lower them then bring them up.TV

BIOS is important, I agree.In my own case I realized that playing with two parameters: AGP aperature and FAST WRITE makes difference. After experimenting I found optimum AGP setting at 64 and FAST WRITE ON (also set in the video drivers). Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_744F.jpghttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg

Yes, it's a fair point. :) I've told myself that it was not that bad but when I would make more flights I'd get to a point where things really weren't acceptable. I mean, when you're close to the treshold at some bigger airport in, let's say, the BAC 1-11 and you get four to five half- to one second pauses it really ruins both, the concentration and immersion. Then I would try the default Cessna away from major airports on a clear day and when I couldn't get smooth flying even for 10 seconds, well... My old system was weaker, but infinitely smoother. I was never bothered by things like the infamous "ATC stutter" or some such. Even at Heathrow Pro add-on airport I was always landing with 100% AI. Sure, I got low FPS, sometimes even in single digits but it was flyable. I think I am not too demanding in this respect. :)Jure

Vulcan,I did limit FPS as low as 20 and it made no difference. Also played with V-Sync, trying to match the screen frequency to the FPS limit and such - no go. Funny thing is, in all my struggle and tweaking, my FPS were steadily going up and yes, today I saw a "200" flicker for a moment. It's absurd. >>In your BIOS make sure you are in the High Performance / max speed>>mode.TV, how do I do that? I've poked to all corners in BIOS but never found something like that?>>After you install 9.1 patch, defrag your HD.Did that.>>Disable your AV and or Fire wall, and all apps not needed, use >>FSAutostart as a starting point. You should have only about 20-24 >>Processes running.Tried that as well. In fact, when I reformatted, I had nothing on my disk, just a brand new installation of FS 9.1. Even without any controllers, just to make sure nothing would interfere. Just as a reminder, I'll say that I get stuttering in PF as well, running under OpenGL...EDIT: Michael, I am on PCI-e, forgot to mention that. So no AGP aperture and no PCI latency to set up. BIOS is the latest and so are the chipset drivers. Guys, I'm really grateful for the time you take trying to help me. :)I'll retire for tonight and tomorrow check the graphics card power supply for starters. Thanks again! :)Jure

Hi, Jure. >>In your BIOS make sure you are in the High Performance / max speed>>mode.>TV, how do I do that? I've poked to all corners in BIOS but never found something like that?